Television

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Georgia police tase 87-year-old woman cutting dandelions

When Martha Al-Bishara, 87, went on a walk near her
home in Chatsworth, Ga., on Aug. 10, she was on a quest for dandelions.
The stroll would end in her getting stunned by a Taser and arrested by police
officers, reports the Washington Post.

According to The Crime Report, Al-Bishara often ventured
outside with a kitchen knife and a plastic bag in hand to cut and collect the
plants for cooking. A man called 911, and police found her on a hill
holding a “a white plastic bag in her left hand and a steak knife in her right
hand.”

It was unclear if the officers realized Al-Bishara
did not speak English but when she did not respond to multiple verbal requests
to put down her knife, one officer shot his Taser, striking Al-Bishara in
the chest and sending her to the ground. She was charged with obstruction
of an officer and criminal trespassing. Chatsworth Police Chief Josh
Etheridge, who was at the scene, defended his officers’ use of force. “In
my opinion, it was the lowest use of force we could have used to simply stop that
threat at the time,” Etheridge told the Daily Citizen-News. “And I
know everyone is going to say, ‘An 87-year-old woman? How big a threat can she
be?’ She still had a knife. … An 87-year-old woman with a knife still has the
ability to hurt an officer.”

About Matt

An analysis of crime and punishment from the perspective of a former prosecutor and current criminal justice practitioner.
The views expressed on this blog are solely those of the author and do not reflect the opinions or postions of any county, state or federal agency.